Xtreme Power aims to alleviate problems associated with renewable energy sources with utility-scale dry cell batteries, and software that monitors power flow in and out of them.

The company does not sell individual batteries, notes Xtreme Power’s chief development officer, Darrell Hayslip, but “power systems” that include a “containerized unit with essentially large banks of batteries arranged in series and in parallel. A typical unit has 1,200 1-kilowatt hour power cells in it, and has the ablity to store 1,200 kilowatt hours of electricity. [Xtreme Power] manages that rack and system by looking at the voltage within.” The materials included in the units are 90% recyclable, he says, and can store generated power for weeks.

Providing reliable solar and wind power storage at a large scale means that when the sun’s not shining or the wind’s not blowing, power utilities can still meet peak energy demand with electricity generated by these non-hydrocarbon sources.

Xtreme Power’s fiberglass dry cell batteries are already working in systems from Antarctica to Hawaii. The company says they can work for 20 years, then get recycled. The batteries work even after they’ve been shot through with bullets, Xtreme Power has claimed.

As reported earlier by Industrial Fuels and Power: “Xtreme Power is retooling a closed Ford Motor factory…as part of a joint venture with Clairvoyant Energy with the aim of producing 2000 megawatts of batteries a year…”

An Xtreme Power spokesperson today confirmed that part of its newly attained funding will be dedicated to the development of that joint venture, and the site now known as the Ford Renewable Energy Park.

The park (in Wixom, Michigan) will be used by Clairvoyant Energy and Xtreme Power to continue research, development, manufacturing and demonstration of their products. But the 320-acre site will also be open to suppliers and other manufacturers in the energy industry. Clairvoyant Energy and Xtreme Power have another goal of creating a minimum of 4,000 energy jobs in the area.

Another piece of Xtreme Energy’s C-series funding will go to to bolster its wind power generating farm project in Hawaii. The New York Times today reported that Hawaii’s “state officials want 70 percent of energy needs to be met by renewable sources like the wind, sun or biomass by 2030.”